Given the number of recent high-profile security breaches, protection of enterprise digital data asset has become increasingly important. Digital data assets (or “data assets,” for short) include, as some non-limiting examples, data such as documents, spreadsheets, digital images, source code, and other forms of digital data. Current authentication and data protection schemes focus on protecting access to the asset itself, often through network application user authentication. For instance, in many current environments, access to digital data assets is granted following a simple authentication via a username and password. However, the data asset can reside in a filesystem or a database where, once accessed the first time, the data asset can be manipulated, moved, stored, shared, or otherwise flow in an uncontrolled and unencrypted manner throughout an enterprise network, and in many cases, beyond the original enterprise network. Thus, as demonstrated in part by various security breaches, the current authentication and data protection schemes are often insufficient to adequately protect such digital data assets.